


if the silence takes you

by keithyourpal



Series: alternate reality!sheith [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Reality, Gangbang, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medical Torture, Mind Manipulation, Mpreg, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 02:27:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14251089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithyourpal/pseuds/keithyourpal
Summary: Sven recovers after helping Team Voltron secure the trans-reality comet. Desperate to get back into the line of duty, his recklessness leads to his capture by the Alteans.





	if the silence takes you

After their run-in with the Akira lookalike and his crew from the alternate reality, Slav got him back to the Guns’ base and from there Sven was put in intensive care.

Getting shot by Alteans so he could save a stranger from an alternate reality was a string of events that fell outside of Slav’s calculations; his assertion that things would be fine hadn’t exactly taken the burning hole in Sven’s chest into consideration. As far as anyone could tell for the week that followed, what would happen to Sven next was as predictable was whichever reality Slav would deduce he was in at any given time.

The injury sent him into a sort of pseudo-heat. He was unconscious for most of it, only aware of the pain in the center of his chest and the primal lust coiling in his gut and radiating throughout the rest of his body in intervals whenever he briefly woke up, the sheets a mess of sweat and slick.

Going into even a normal heat was painful enough. Why his body thought intensifying how fucking awful he felt after a near-death experience would do him any good was a mystery, unless you believed all that nonsense that it was the body’s instinctual cry for help from a mate in a time of need.

Sven was a scientist, yet as he lay trapped in his own body and the war it was waging on itself, he thought that if anything could turn him into a romantic, this pain would be it. Nothing had made him feel like this since leaving Earth.

“How are you holding up?” one of the attendants asked him once he managed to stay conscious for longer than a minute. The medic came in behind her and bustled around. The medical ward was small and overcrowded, and through the thin curtain Sven could hear other patients complaining about the smell. There just wasn’t enough space to keep an omega in heat sequestered away in privacy.

“Mm,” Sven said, his chest feeling like the punctured hull of a ship.

“You’re fine when _I_ say you’re fine.” The medic frowned down at him from behind the attendant as she undressed Sven’s bandages. “Which, believe you me, is not going to be anytime soon. So _hold_. _Still_.”

Only Alteans had the resources and advanced enough technology to reverse the damage from injuries as severe as this. If the Guns had their hands on just one of those healing pods, he could be back in action in a matter of days without even a scar, or any of the lingering side effects, and certainly without a distress heat.

As it stood, this injury could very well end his career even if he kept quiet and spent the next few months recuperating like the good doctor testily ordered. It was no one’s fault. This was simply how things often went in their line of work.

The following day, the same attendant poked her head in around the curtain. “You have a visitor, Sven.”

The past week had been lonely and miserable. Any updates on what was going on in the universe outside the med bay was desperately welcome, no matter how grim. That said, it was still difficult to raise his head or even open his eyes, and just thinking about trying made him give up.

The scent hit him first. Then he heard light footsteps, followed by a familiar voice that made him force his eyes open despite the burning glare of the overhead lights and the nausea that roiled through him.

“You can’t blame yourself for not being invincible.”

Akira. The alpha had been away on a mission several galaxies away for over a month. News of the comet’s liberation via inter-reality explorers had not been enough to bring him back to base. Nor had news of Sven’s injury and subsequent week of touch-and-go with a fever that almost killed him.

Knowing this did nothing to stop the pang Sven felt as he turned his head to face his leader, one that existed long before he and Slav volunteered to recover the comet. He felt it regardless of whether Akira was off waging war hundreds of lightyears away or here approaching Sven’s beside with a stern, chastising expression weighing on his pretty face.

Akira took a seat beside the hospital bed and patted Sven’s arm, his touch slow and lingering and agonizing. It had been too long since they last saw each other and this was certainly not the reunion Sven would have hoped for. “They wouldn’t let me in when I came by yesterday. Said you were in heat. You just can’t catch a break, huh?”

Sven blinked in agreement. The universe certainly seemed to have it out for him lately.

“But seriously. You need to focus on taking things easy for a while.”

“No good here.”

“You won’t do anyone any favors by getting in the way.” Akira’s dark eyes swept over him. There was no sympathy or pity there anymore. Sven met him in space after Earth was conquered as a bright optimistic young soldier. 

There was no trace of that boy left in him now. The Akira before him was driven by a hollow purpose, because deep down all the Guns knew that they were fighting a losing war, and the only thing that kept them going was an indignation that the Alteans were gradually beating out of them. “This is . . .” 

“Don’t. Please . . .”

“Sven. You need to consider the possibility that--”

“ _Please_.”

Akira’s mouth hung open momentarily before snapping shut. A muscle popped in his jaw. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said instead. “I know this must be hard for you.”

Akira was unfettered and pragmatic. What mattered to him was the reality of the situation, not anyone’s feelings about it. Not even Sven’s.

Sven had nothing else to offer him. If he wasn’t a Gun, if he wasn’t sticking his neck out for a planet that they had long since given up hope on avenging, he was done. Sitting around nursing a scrape was not the way he wanted to go out. He had been fighting for too long just to end up as the guy everyone else looked at to feel better about their lot in the universe.

And, he thought with a stir of annoyance, Akira didn’t get to act like he _knew_ how Sven _felt_ , not after spending the last five years of the war pining after the Altean Empress.

Akira visited him one more time before heading out on another mission. His long black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that tumbled over one shoulder. He was so beautiful. 

If not for his limited ability to speak, Sven would have confessed right then and there. Not like it would change anything. His feelings were pretty much an open secret that he suspected were quietly, pointedly ignored for the sake of their working relationship.

“Akira,” he said. “Stay.”

“I can’t.”

“Please . . .”

“I’ll be back soon.”

Akira patted him on the arm again and then he departed, leaving Sven for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a darkfic and Sven is not in for a good time. I won't tag anything specific in the actual tags section just bc this fandom is the way it is and certain types of ppl use the tag system to specifically search out and complain about content they don't like, but I will tag/warn in the chapter notes for things as needed.
> 
> I'm taking a mini hiatus from fandom until s6 just as a sanity check. I want to get work done on my fics without worrying about fandom drama or letting my anxiety about updating keeping me from, well, updating.


End file.
